Tell Me What You're Hiding
by ApolloIsTooAwesome
Summary: Not many people can say they became friends with someone by shoving them into a locker as Arthur Kirkland did to new student, Kiku Honda - but not all friendships can start with a common interest and a shared lesson. Though there's something about Kiku he just can't place his finger on, and he's going to try his damn hardest to figure it out. (Iggypan) ((Warning - abuse, language))
1. Not the best of starts

**Alright so this is my first Iggypan fanfiction, I'm hoping it goes alright. It's rated M for themes of abuse and language so... I hope this doesn't upset anyone, I'll try to keep it on the safe side. I hope you enjoy reading it.**

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Arthur groaned, snapped out of his blissful dreaming by high-pitched, painfully loud squealing that seemed to be coming from downstairs. He winced, and when the noises continued he folded the pillow over his ears - trying to block it out. He wasn't sure of the time, but seeing as his alarm hadn't turned on yet it couldn't have been all that late. He made sure the material was tightly wrapped around his head before closing his heavy eyes and attempting to drift back off to sleep.  
It was not a minute later than, when sleep began to take him once more, the clock beside his bed blared loudly - playing a tinny rendition of an unfamiliar bagpipe-rock type song, most probably Scottish. The lyrics sounded weird anyway, he couldn't understand a single word the singer was saying.

"Shut up..." He mumbled, his voice muffled by the pillow, as he blindly fumbled for the 'off' button to shut the noise off. Finally finding it, he slammed his hand down on the battered clock and instantly silenced the music. "Just one more day, please?... I'll go to school tomorrow..." He pleaded to himself, letting out a deep sigh and unwillingly rolling out of the warm duvet. Arthur didn't mind school, on the contrary he _liked _learning new things. What he didn't like, however, were the imbeciles in his Year group who seemed to suffer from amnesia for the first week of school and forgot that trying to tease and bully him was neither fun nor earned any sort of reaction. Arthur didn't care about their pathetic attempts to torment him, he just didn't look forward to being knocked to the floor or shoved into lockers.

"Arthur!" Came a bellow from below. "If you don't get your arse down here you won't have time for breakfast!"

"Alright, alright, I'm coming." He yelled back, turning his head and shoving the pillow away. He rubbed his eyes groggily as he sat up, now wishing that he hadn't stayed up so late studying just to relieve his boredom, and reached for his vest that was tossed on the floor. The shrieking sounds intensified as he made his way downstairs - running his hand through his tousled hair and trying to flatten it out. He neatly dodged the toy car that had been discarded on the stairs, not fancying falling flat on his face, and made his way into the kitchen.

"Ah, looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today." The brunette sitting at the table chuckled upon seeing Arthur. He folded his newspaper up and set it down, crossing his arms and looking Arthur up and down. "Plan on getting dressed today, hmm?"

"Shut up, Owen, I'll have some toast first." The blond grumbled back, walking straight past him and instead reaching inside the bread bin while neatly dodging the small blur that sprinted past him.

"Hey, Arthur's naked!" The young blond boy exclaimed excitedly, pointing at Arthur with a huge grin on his face. "Why are you naked Arthur? Aren't we wearing clothes today? Are we all taking our clothes off? This is awesome!"

"For goodness' sake I told the twins not to get him hyper before 12." Owen muttered, rubbing his forehead before addressing the boy. "Arthur's not naked, Alfie, he's wearing underwear and a vest. And no, we're not all getting undressed so don't even start taking off your clothes."

Alfred's face fell at Owen's words, a frown replacing the beam that was there a moment ago. "Please, pa? Puh-leaaaase? We _always _wear clothes." He whined, giving Owen the best puppy dog eyes he could muster.

"Don't even bother giving me those eyes, kiddo, it's not going to work. We'll just be arrested for public indecency." Owen laughed, before climbing to his feet and scooping up the now-giggling child. "Now come on, time to get ready for school."

"Noooo!" He protested, squirming as he was led out of the room. "Not school!"

Arthur rolled his eyes, shaking his head at the antics as he tucked into his toast. A quick glance at his watch told him he had 15 minutes until he ideally needed to leave the house and walk to the bus stop. Sure, he could probably sneak a lift with one of his siblings but he didn't really fancy having to endure his dysfunctional family for a second longer than he had to. Practically shoving the toast down his throat, Arthur sprinted back upstairs to throw on his freshly-ironed clothes, brush his teeth and sling his rucksack onto his shoulder.

"Arthur!" Came yet another voice from downstairs. "Move your butt, we're leaving now whether you're with us or not!"

Gritting his teeth, Arthur glanced one more time into the mirror to check his tie was fixed properly and his hair looked alright before following suit and hurrying out of the house - not even having the enthusiasm for a 'goodbye' on his way out.

"What's up with you?" His younger sister, Niamh, questioned as they walked in silence - noting how he usually at least tried to make conversation on their trip.

"First day of school, remember?" Niamh's twin brother, Aedan, reminded her - glancing at Arthur knowingly and giving him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about it bro, you'll be fine."

"It's not that, guys," He sighed, scratching his head. "I'm just tired, I was up until 2."

"And you're the one that lectures us about staying up late!" Aedan exclaimed, blowing his long tangerine-coloured hair out of his eyes to look at Arthur seriously. "What the hell were you doing up so late?"

"Studying."

"Studying?" Aedan repeated in disbelief, before dissolving into a fit of giggles. "First day of school and you're already exhausted from _studying_?"

"Please, Aedan, I don't need this lecture from you. How many times have I had to tell you two the same thing?" Arthur snapped, already slightly impatient with the Irish teen's teasing.

"Yeah but that's different." Niamh interjected. "You were studying, whereas we're doing something at least slightly interesting like video games or Tumblr."

Arthur glared at them both, but decided that he would just ignore them - knowing he'd get nowhere in arguing with them both. Instead, he reached inside his pocket for his trusty - though not without its fair share of broken buttons and chipped paint - IPod - shoving his headphones inside his ears and deciding that Take That would probably be a nice pick-me-up band to listen to. He was so absorbed in their songs by the time that he got onto the bus that he barely noticed the hour-long bus journey passing by. It seemed like only a minute before he was back, after 6 painfully boring weeks, to the cramped corridors full of people running and taking the wrong directions - generally causing what he liked to call the traffic jams of the corridor. And then, of course, there was the _thrill_ - note the sarcasm dripping in his voice - of meeting his peers again and receiving a few bruises from being slammed into the hard metal of the lockers by the more mature of the 17 year olds.  
It was before school had even started and Arthur had already had enough of everyone and everything in life. And then, it was before school had even started when he decided that the next person to hit him deliberately would get a taste of their own medicine. And not a minute later that he felt another body slam into his shoulder. In that moment, he turned around and gave the person who had knocked into them a furious shove - sending them flying into the locker. He looked up, preparing for someone to hit him right in the face, and looked straight into unfamiliar, terrified brown eyes.

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**Well I hated everything about that, especially as intros to a story goes, but I hope you didn't. I'll try to explain more about Arthur's family and everything so it's a little less confusing in the next chapter. Thanks for reading!**


	2. A New Friend

Arthur's eyes widened as he stared at the trembling boy in front of him. There was quite a significant height difference between them, which not only made the other boy look younger but much more fragile. He had to have been around the same age - give or take a year - but that didn't mean that Arthur didn't feel as guilty as he would have if it was a much younger student. He swallowed, feeling horrified that he had lost his temper so easily and sunk to the level of the gits in his year, and what's more was he had never seen this boy before - which meant he must have been new.

"Oh shit!" He gasped, stepping backwards and raising his hands in the air as other students stopped to point and whisper excitedly. "I'm so sorry, I thought-"

"It's okay." The young raven-haired teen answered back in a barely-audible voice, bending down to scoop up some textbooks that had fallen out of his bag - which had been ripped on a protruding piece of metal on the locker. "Don't worry about it." And without another word, all without looking at Arthur himself, the boy swept away quietly. Arthur turned to watch him go, mouth still wide open, but as soon as the other student had hastened around the corner he shook his head - flushing as he heard the hushed voices of his fellow classmates. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he noticed that there was a small, golden locket on the ground where the boy had been standing - and he quickly hurried over to retrieve it. It looked expensive and precious, with strange engravings that Arthur could only presume were Japanese - at any rate it was probably worth quite a bit. He tucked it in his pocket for safe-keeping before quickly scooping up his bag and hurrying off to his morning registration before he could pick any more fights.

"You're late, Arthur." His registration tutor - an intimidatingly tall, long-haired blond man by the name of Mr. Germania (though he did sometimes insist on being instead called 'Herr Germania') - said dissaprovingly as he walked through the door. Mr. Germania was usually anything but lax on punctuality, yet Arthur knew he was only getting a stern word and not being forced to explain himself because this was the first time he had arrived even a second after the bell.

"Sorry, sir, I dropped my lunch money." Arthur was quick to apologize, turning slightly red at the scolding and quickly scampering away towards his usual desk in the corner of the room. However, when he went to put his bag down he found that someone was already sitting there. He looked up, his attention being diverted away from the thoughts of his first lesson - English Literature - and finally took in the boy ahead of him. His heart sank as they made eye contact - the emerald green once more meeting the flat dark brown. Arthur hesitated upon seeing the nervousness in the other's eyes, looking around the classroom for anywhere else to sit to relieve the new student.

"Ah, I told young Kiku here that he could sit next to you, Arthur." Mr Germania informed him from across the room. "You are, after all, very helpful to new students, and Kiku has just moved from Kiyose, Tokyo. Is that okay?"

Arthur watched the boy - Kiku, was that his name? - pull a confused face at the words 'helpful', and Arthur couldn't help but feel that Kiku had a very different idea than the teacher about him.

"O-Of course, sir."

Slowly, trying not to touch him, the blond edged around Kiku and pulled up his chair - edging as far away from the other as he possibly could. However, he could feel the small chain in his pocket, and coughed a little awkwardly to attract the other's attention.  
"I... er, apologise about earlier." He started a little weakly. "I really shouldn't have pushed you, especially without checking you weren't someone who was planning on shoving me first."

Kiku looked at him, frowning in confusion. "People plan to shove you?" He asked, his voice still painfully quiet.

"Let's just say not everyone here appreciates me being around." Arthur's face darkened slightly. "But never mind them, I just feel really bad. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No, no, you didn't." Kiku shook his head quickly. "You just surprised me."

"That's good." The relief was visible on the Brit's face. "Oh yeah, I think you dropped this.." He reached inside his pocket and pulled out the small locket, placing it gently on the table. Kiku's eyes widened in immediate panic as he grabbed at his neck, and then he snatched up the necklace and held it tightly in his hand.

"I knew I should have put it on." He whispered, looking quite pale at the sight of the locket. "What if I had lost it? Aragatto, thank you so much, Arthur." He smiled at Arthur gratefully, tucking the locket safely underneath his clothes and out of sight. "If I'd have lost it I would never have forgiven myself."

"Well it would have been my fault, I made you drop it." Arthur told him, feeling more than a little guilty. "It must mean a lot to you.."

"Hai," Kiku nodded in agreement. "It belonged to someone very special to me."  
Ah, maybe a girlfriend from Japan? That was understandable, especially if he had just moved from the country.

"I see." Arthur said, before attempting to steer the conversation to something more friendly. "So... what subjects are you taking?"

"You can have a look if you like." Kiku handed Arthur a small slip of paper with a timetable printed on. Arthur scanned through it quickly - a smile touching his lips as he read the list of classes Kiku would be taking.

"Aha!" He exclaimed triumphantly. "I knew you were smart, it's about time we had someone _intelligent _join our school. Further Maths, Further Science, ICT and Art, you must be bright!"

Kiku turned bright red at this statement, looking to the ground and feeling horribly embarrassed. "I'm not _that _smart." He mumbled humbly, fiddling with his thumbs. "I just enjoy those subjects."

"Nothing wrong with that, I enjoy Science as well - I'm taking it, as a matter of fact." The blond grinned at Kiku, patting him reassuringly on the back. "And there's nothing wrong with being smart."

"I know, I'm just not that smart. But anyway, what subjects are you taking?"

"Science, English Literature, Music and..." Suddenly, Arthur's voice dropped to a mutter. "Mandarin."

"You're doing Mandarin?!" Kiku repeated excitedly, a beam gracing his features. "I speak it too! My father's Chinese, I thought it was only right to learn his language!"

"Most people think it's a subject for geeks." Arthur admitted. "But it really is a beautiful language."

"I agree." Kiku bowed his head happily, only to jump slightly as the school bell sounded - shrill and, as usual, painfully loud - above their heads. "Ah, Arthur do... do you know where the Maths Block is?"

"Of course I do, I'll take you there!" Arthur quickly jumped to his feet, pulling his rucksack on, before scooping up the books and equipment scattered on Kiku's desk before he could protest.

"You don't have to carry-" Kiku began, but Arthur cut him off cheerily.

"I ripped your bag, of course I have to carry your stuff!" He insisted, heading out of the classroom and turning left towards the Maths Block. "Don't worry, I promise I'll pay for it as well."  
Kiku could only blush harder, unused to this kindness from other people around him - back in his old school if your property was damaged you would just have to suck it up and get new things, no one was there to give you a hand and help you pay for replacements. He wasn't really sure whether he liked Arthur or not, the blond seemed to be easily irritated at one moment, before turning shy, and then going impossibly cheerful in just a moment - Kiku didn't know whether Arthur would always be like this. Nevertheless, he told himself, maybe just a single friend would be able to distract him from the rest of his life...

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**Nuuuuuurgh another short one :(  
*I will not look back at it and see how rubbish it is*  
I will try and update on Saturday, because I know how the next chapter is going to pan out rather than being stuck like I've been with this one.**


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